5 Days Lake Nakuru and Maasai Mara Safari

On arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, complete immigration and collect your luggage before meeting your local representative in the arrivals area. Transfer to your Nairobi hotel, where you can check in and settle into your room after your journey.

The rest of the day is free to rest at the hotel. Enjoy a quiet afternoon in the lounge or gardens, or use the hotel facilities if you arrive early enough. Your safari briefing introduces the route, the next morning’s departure and the places you will visit with your guide.

In the evening, have dinner at the hotel or choose a nearby restaurant, depending on your arrival time. Settle in for an overnight stay in Nairobi before the wildlife journey begins.

Meal plan: Breakfast only where included in the confirmed arrival-night booking; lunch and dinner at own expense unless quoted.

After breakfast, depart for Lake Nakuru National Park in the Great Rift Valley. Descend into the valley and continue toward Nakuru, with a comfort stop en route before entering the park.

Begin exploring the park’s grasslands, woodland and lakeshore. Look for white and black rhinos, buffaloes, zebras and Rothschild’s giraffes, while your guide searches the shaded areas for lions and leopards.

Have lunch at your lodge or at a designated picnic place, then continue your game drive in the afternoon. Along the lake, look for pelicans, cormorants and other waterbirds. Flamingo numbers vary with the lake’s water levels and feeding conditions, so the birdlife changes throughout the year.

Pause at suitable viewpoints to photograph the lake and surrounding escarpments, then continue to your lodge for dinner and an overnight stay.

Meal plan: Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

After breakfast, depart from Lake Nakuru and travel toward the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Continue through the Rift Valley countryside and the Narok area, passing farms, rural settlements and grazing herds as the road leads toward the open plains of the Mara.

Arrive at your camp or lodge for lunch, check in and enjoy a short rest before your first game drive. The afternoon brings your first close look at the Mara’s rolling grasslands, scattered acacia trees and seasonal streams.

Head out with your guide to look for elephants, giraffes, zebras, buffaloes and antelopes. Watch the edges of tall grass and shaded areas as your guide searches for lions, cheetahs and other predators. Pause at sightings to observe the animals’ behaviour and take photographs.

Return to your camp or lodge before darkness for dinner and an overnight stay.

Meal plan: Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

After an early breakfast, leave camp with a packed lunch for a full day in the Maasai Mara. Explore the open plains while the morning is still cool, looking for lions returning from a night’s hunting, cheetahs scanning the grasslands and elephants moving between feeding areas.

Continue through different sections of the reserve, pausing beside herds of zebras, wildebeest, buffaloes and gazelles. Your guide will explain the relationships between the grazing animals, predators and the landscape, with time to watch behaviour rather than hurry from one sighting to another.

Stop for a picnic lunch at a designated place, then continue your game drive through the afternoon. During the migration season, your guide may focus on areas used by the moving herds; their location and any river crossings depend on natural conditions.

Return to camp before dusk, freshen up and enjoy dinner. Spend the evening relaxing and discussing the day’s wildlife encounters.

Meal plan: Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

After breakfast at the Maasai Mara, meet your guide and begin the road journey back to Nairobi. Enjoy a final view of the surrounding landscape as you leave the safari region, with a comfort stop along the route.

Continue through rural towns and farmland toward the capital. Your guide will arrange the journey around your confirmed drop-off and flight time, with a lunch stop or packed meal where included in the booking.

On reaching Nairobi, transfer to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your onward flight, or to the city drop-off point stated in your arrangements. Say farewell to your guide at the end of your Kenya safari.

Meal plan: Breakfast; lunch where included in the confirmed safari package. Dinner is not included unless quoted.